Do hoaxers not like the snow?

Summary of Points

1) Tracking elusive animals is easier in the winter because tracks are easily made and seen in snow. Why don't we find any snow prints of North American bigfoot?

2) Is the lack of bigfoot tracks in the snow because hoaxers can't fake tracks in the snow?

3) From a biological viewpoint, it's unlikely that bigfoot hibernates through the winter. However, if it does hibernate through winter, it would likely leave snow prints in late fall/early winter and at the onset of spring.

Why doesn't bigfoot leave tracks in the snow?!?

Any tracker can tell you that animals prints are easier to identify and follow in the snow. For this reason, many scientific studies of elusive and rare creatures like wolverines and lynx occur during winter when tracks are obvious and can be followed for long distances. Considering this, why is it that all or most tracks of North American bigfoot (non-yeti) are found in normal substrate (dirt, mud) and not in snow? If we're able to find bigfoot tracks in dirt, shouldn't we find twice as many or more in the snow?

By way of comparison, think about how many snowshoe hare tracks can be found during the summer. You'd have to look hard and carefully to find many tracks. However, during the winter you'd be hard pressed not to find tracks within a few minutes time! The point here is that the amount of tracks found during the summer (in dirt) is a small ratio of the amount of tracks found during the winter. Applying this to bigfoot, since we find a modest handful of tracks in the dirt during spring, summer, and fall, we should find many times that number of tracks during winter. The reason being that tracks in the snow are easier to make, they are easier to locate and identify, they can last longer, and the surface conditions are more uniform making long sets of tracks available. The fact that bigfoot snow tracks are never found,or mostly never, appears contrary to what would logically be expected. In other words, if bigfoot does exist we should find significantly more tracks in the snow than in dirt or mud.

One explanation could be that bigfoot hibernates during the winter, which would subsequently mean that they are not out-and-about while snow is on the ground. However this seems unlikely for a few reasons: 1) many animals enter hibernation after first snow fall and leave hibernation before the snow melts, meaning that they would still leave some tracks in the snow, and 2) hibernation (or more correctly, 'torpor') is a special behavioral/physiological adaptation that, from what I know, has not evolved in primates. However, the argument could be made that bigfoot independently evolved such an adaptation, but such a major adaptation as hibernation does not come easily - the body's whole physiology needs to be rewired to allow the tissues and organs to survive at significantly lower body temperatures (think about how easily humans can die from hypothermia). So, while it is theoretically possible that bigfoot have independently evolved hibernation behavior, the odds are against it. But for the sake of argument let's say that they are physically able to hibernate, they would still leave prints in the snow at the beginning of winter and the onset of spring.

An alternate reason why we don't find bigfoot prints in the snow is because its much more difficult to fake tracks. This assumes that bigfoot is not real and all foot prints are faked. Let's consider what it would take to fake a believable set of tracks in the snow. First, the set of tracks would have to be fairly long and the point of origin and termination would have to seem plausible. Second, the hoaxer would also have to conceal their own tracks, including how they got there and how they left. This is a very formidable challenge and would prevent fake tracks from being left in the snow.

Tracking animals in the snow is one of the best ways for biologists to track rare and elusive species. The fact that we don't find bigfoot tracks in the snow is very suspect and strongly suggests that bigfoot may not exist.

Bigfoot Ecology

Summary of Points

1) Bigfoot isn't supernatural , it has the same biological urges and requirements as any other animal. One urge is to eat, and bigfoot would be expected to spend significant time finding and consuming food to support their high mammalian metabolic rate and large size. Therefore, evidence like scat and disturbed vegetation should give us physical evidence of their existence.

2) It is suspicious that we don't find bigfoot hair more frequently. Being a large creature that lives in areas with cold winters, we should expect an annual molt like other mammals, and thus large tufts of hair being shed.

3) If we assume that bigfoot is a primate, then we would expect them to be intensely social like other primates. However, all or most physical evidence is of single, solitary bigfoot.

4) How does such a rare and elusive species find one another to breed?

If bigfoot exists, then it must be similar to every other animal in that it has certain biological and ecological requirements, i.e., it must forage, breed, and its physiology and behavior must be adapted to its environment. From this simple premise, one would expect to find tell-tale evidence even if the creature itself was not directly witnessed.

For example, a large animal like bigfoot must not only eat a lot of food, it must spend a lot of time finding that food and consuming it. It must also leave behind a lot of excrement. So why don't we see evidence of bigfoot browsing behavior, such as large sites of disturbed vegetation? Where are the big piles of scat? Mountain gorillas, by way of comparison, must sit and eat for a large part of the day, leaving behind obvious areas of disturbance. Moose are constantly browsing for forage, trampling meadows and dredging through ponds. If bigfoot was real, we should find more evidence of this type and with greater frequency.

It would also be reasonable to come across bigfoot hair more frequently - certainly more often than visual sightings. Like most mammals living in areas with cold winters, bigfoot would surely molt to insure the quality of their pelage (fur) and thus have an effective layer of insulation to last through each winter. With such a large animal, there would surely be a relatively large amount of fur to find, and not just a hair or two, but clumps of it. The lack of more hair as evidence is, in my view, particularly troubling.

And the last point I want to make for now involves the issues of breeding, mating systems, and social structure. We know that primates, especially apes, are intensely social. So why is it that a majority of tangible bigfoot evidence ( (footprints, photo/video) is of a single, solitary individual? Wouldn't it be logical to expect bigfoot to be social like other primates, and therefore shouldn't most evidence involve multiple bigfoot? If bigfoot did indeed exist, we may have to conclude that it is not a primate; this may also be a conclusion to the following paragraph.

A question also arises about how bigfoot find potential mates for breeding. It is known that primates have a drastically reduced sense of smell and instead rely heavily on sound and binocular vision. This is a result of a flattened face (reduced rostrum) which leaves them morpho-physiologically incapable of detecting odors to the extent that most other mammals can. The sense of smell is so reduced in primates that ovulation in females is said to be "hidden" due to the fact that males are unable to detect sexual pheromones and other olfactory clues associated with it. Most mammals can detect ovulation through smell, but not primates, which is why females baboons have evolved the brightly colored butts, which is a visual clue to advertise their reproductive status. So without a highly developed sense of smell, how does a rare and seemingly solitary species find potential mates? The answer would have to be through sight and sound, which leaves us to anticipate that bigfoot vocally communicate over large distances, use traditional or communal breeding grounds (like a lek), or have other distinct visual or auditory systems that would provide us with observable evidence of their existence. However, there is no convincing evidence supporting this.

The basic impulse of all life forms is to obtain energy and nutrients to stay alive with the purpose of breeding. These impulses to stay alive and breed cannot be avoided for any normal (non-neurotic) animal. The point is that no matter how bad bigfoot may want to avoid detection, it would still need to spend considerable time and effort in the search for food, mates, and suitable habitat. This simple fact means that there should be more physical evidence of its existence.

This old blog

Hello all,

I have decided to write this blog - having never blogged before - because I feel compelled to begin a discussion on certain aspects relating to the search for bigfoot. I have become more interested in this issue over the last few years, and after cruising some of the websites and reading some of the recent books on this subject, including Dr. Meldrum's book, "Sasquatch: legend meets science" and Dr. Daegling's "Bigfoot Exposed," I fell that many important issues have been neglected. If the search for bigfoot is to be taken seriously, and if we ever hope to find the creature if it does exists, then these neglected issues will surely have to be considered.

I hope to use this blog to share my thoughts on this phenomenom and hopefully spark some intelligent, thoughtful, and science-based discussion. The search for the truth is the goal, even if this means that bigfoot doesn't exist.